Finding the Right Notes

Ron Carter is among the most original, prolific, and influential bassists in jazz. With more than 2,000 albums to his credit, he has recorded with many of music's greats: Tommy Flanagan, Gil Evans, Lena Horne, Bill Evans, B.B. King, the Kronos Quartet, Dexter Gordon, Wes Montgomery, and Bobby Timmons. In the early 1960s he performed throughout the United States in concert halls and nightclubs with Jaki Byard and Eric Dolphy. At six feet, four inches, the bassist towers over the bandstand, no longer relegated to the back, in the shadows behind the frontline players. And in a historical shift of jazz bass playing, he's no longer just a timekeeper, a rhythm man, a sidekick to the spotlight artist-but an architect of the highest order, an impromptu composer even when he's not taking solos. Pliable yet powerful. The instigator. The catalyst. The shepherd. The finest walker in the history of jazz. The risk-taker with an elegant streak. Refined. The anchor of Miles Davis's classic 60s quintet. The most recorded jazz bassist of all time. National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master. If he were a character in a novel, he would be the protagonist. That's Ron Carter, jazz legend, and Finding the Right Notes is his story.